"Okay, how about you learn this one…" Granny, still smiling, suddenly reached out.
Her slim hand grasped his entire face firmly before black soul juice rushed into his body. Though she was a coelacanth and didn't like direct contact, she had done exactly that in this very moment. Progress….
The juice flooded his body, flowing through every nook and cranny. Every artery, vein, and blood vessel surged with her overbearing energy; if it wasn't for the fact that she was holding it back, merely the energy alone would cause him to explode into a bloody mist. It energized his cells, causing him to shake as his body turned from a sweet caramel to a fireball red.
At first glance, it might appear that Granny was merely shoving juice into his body, but Ran knew that this was what he was looking for!
A skill!
Yet, this simple process was a lot more complicated; every single inch of his body was filled differently! Maybe a vein or cell would be left out, or maybe another would be filled beyond its limit. Sometimes, they wouldn't be filled all the way, or they would be connected to others. Or they could be isolated.
Point was, this s**t was complicated!
But Ran wasn't gonna let this slip from his fingers, and luckily, he had a pretty good memory.
Every single detail was stored into his memory.
After a while, he had completely memorized the skill and was ready to "try" it out.
"Alright miss Granny, you might want to step back, I don't want to hurt you," Ran jokingly said while cracking his knuckles. He was ready to conquer this skill!
Inside his body, his soul juice flowed everywhere: it was a perfect copy! Now, all he needed to do was to connect the last strings together and activate the skill.
And once they were, all the juice in his body lit up in a mysterious fashion before…
"Cough!"
The activation of the skill quickly fizzled out and Ran coughed a mouthful of blood.
"Ahem, well… that didn't go as intended," Ran chuckled self-deprecatingly at himself before waving his hand; the diffusing blood caught aflame before disappearing. Any damage dealt to his body was also healed.
Granny couldn't help but sneer at his comment, "hmm, this might be a long ride. I don't know if you're just ignorant or if you just did that to humor me. After all, that was for my body, yours is very different in comparison." She even showed a little disgust on her face.
"Oh?" Rans eyes opened wide; was she trying to… roast him?
"Then, I'm definitely ignorant, definitely." He was telling the truth however, how could he know that this skill was filtered through her body. Now, he had to go through all that work to make it work for him.
Except, after he said that, he ended up puking more blood from reactivating the faulty skill. Well now he was just being stupid.
Seeing this, she only shook her head before a "heh" exited her mouth. She only caught her mistake seconds later.
"Did I just laugh," She questioned herself. She hadn't laughed in a hundred years. "He… he's more dangerous than I thought."
After all, it's just like the saying:
You laugh, you lose.
…
Within his mind, a vast and chaotic world was teeming with life. All the people were dealing with their own lives; fathers and mothers alike were busy at work or caring for their children.
The children played with each other outside. With most of the city being built with one-way glass or glass that was stained white. The whole city was within its own reflection, you could see through corners from one side of a building all the way to the other.
The children would often see themselves in the mirror-like buildings and their warped reflections would always make them chuckle.
Everyone, including the various business owners and workers, were always very warm and welcoming - a product of their ideology. They were all taught to be thankful for being able to live in this (once) peaceful land. They were all taught that just by living here is what allowed them to become what they were today. Which was… not wrong. Even Ran and Ann were taught that.
The whole of this land was just so vibrant in comparison to the desert ruins they sit on. Actually, it was too vibrant, to the point they had to invent a specific eye contact that prevents the sun's reflection from blinding people… but that's besides the point.
All these little interactions between everyone and everything here, all of it was personally witnessed by Ran himself!
This was the culmination of years of observation - over a decade. When he wasn't alone in his room, doing whatever satiates his boredom or playing with Ann, the majority of his time was spent out here. While the way his parents treated him weren't open to the general public, the inner circle was more than aware.
His dysfunctional, outright destructive, family proved to be infectious as those families were reluctant to allow their kids to mingle with him. And the normal families outside were too grateful towards him to have a normal friendly relationship.
But… I've been ranting too much as it is.
On a particular street, it was completely stranded and all the buildings seemed slightly different. They appeared brand new and their design was even slightly different than what you'd find elsewhere. This was a product of Rans imagination.
Within one of these buildings, white pedestals littered the first floor. Each pedestal had a bubble floating above it; inside each bubble's visage was filled with various memories.
Sun rays filled the room and came from all sorts of angles, it even seemed to center around one pedestal.
On this pedestal was a bubble, just like the others, only this one was within the grasp of a tall figure.
They looked at the bubble and the memory within, twisting and turning it in curiosity. They observed the other bubbles, noting that memories contained within were revolving one subject in particular. Notably, they were the memories of the skill that Ran had just failed to "conquer".
Boom! Just then, the double doors of the building opened, attracting the attention of the tall figure. What they saw was surprising to say the least. It was a gigantic eye! It was so big that the four meter-tall doorway was unable to allow its entirety to be seen.
"Olly, are you sure I have to help him," the tall figure frowned slightly as she questioned the eye.
That's right, it was Olly the Koi fish! Her humongous body was floating at an angle, her fishy self attracted the attention of everyone as they pointed at her. Even though her body was perfectly still, her tail wagged excitedly, causing a moving shadow to occasionally blot out the suns.
In response to their question, Olly slowly blinked her eye that was facing the tall figure.
"Sigh… I'd rather be eating fish right about now; fighting one would be nice too." Though they said that, they still gathered all the bubbles together.
After summoning a fish, and eating it to satiate their craving, they looked at the bubbles in anguish before getting to work….
Just like this, a week passed by.
While asleep, Granny would help him as he studied and tinkered with the skill. It was an arduous journey to be sure, and between coughing obscene amounts of blood and healing himself, Ran also found it quite tedious. And yet, he would manage to succeed and surprise Granny just the day after.
That night:
"Say, Ran, do you know the origin of this skill?" Ran, who was just about to test his skill, was caught off guard by her sudden question.
"Um… does it make a difference?" Ran tilted his head in thought.
"Fool! Of course it does! This is a skill that the Stonefish tribe would instill into their offspring to help them avoid being detected." It appears that Granny is getting a little too comfortable around Ran, for her to call him that. But, I'll let it slide this time… this time.
"Hmm… I see-" Rans face was one of contemplation, as if showing he understood, until, "what's a stonefish?"
"What!? Okay, forget about that, just know that their lifestyle mainly consists of staying in one place and blending in to make sure their prey doesn't see them. In other words, while the skill lets you hide your presence from others of upto one rank higher than you, you aren't allowed to move very much."
This came as a shock to Ran. Though, it made sense he wouldn't know much about it considering he didn't make the original skill; the special runes wouldn't be able to help out either since he wasn't dealing with runes.
"Well, we won't know till we try." And like that, Ran was prepared to activate the skill.
He went up to the cave wall since the skill needed a medium to help cover him. Now all he was all set.
However, how can I let Ran go so easily without him doing anything? It's already been a week since anything interesting happened.
And so, right when he activated his skill, his consciousness wavered before he bursted into a bunch of bubbles and abruptly left Pispatria.